SHALLOWATER -- The last time Lee wasn’t practicing against itself, it saw its season end in a flurry of second-half points, 28 to be exact, as San Angelo Central rallied to keep the Rebels out of the postseason.

Amarillo High certainly isn’t San Angelo Central when it comes to high-flying offenses -- and Friday won’t count in the win column -- but the Rebel defense was certainly proud of its effort Friday as the Sandies’ first-team offense scored just once in the teams’ intersquad scrimamge at Todd Field.

Lee made the Sandies, who return two starters on offense, look the part of an inexperienced team Friday as it only allowed one scoring drive, which came in the first half of the scrimmage.

The Rebel defense was particularly effective in the live portion of the scrimmage, which consisted of two 10-minute quarters, shutting out the Sandies and forcing the only turnover of the scrimmage on a fumble caused by senior linebacker Brives Turner and recovered by junior cornerback Juwan Lee.

With the Rebel offense having a hard time getting going -- the first team had only scored once the entire scrimmage to that point -- the defense was happy to come up with a momentum-changing play.

“I think that pushed our offense more to show them that we were out there busting our butts just for them to get back out there and try to go score and put points on the board for us,” Turner said. “So, I feel like that was a good turnover, and I feel like after that they realized that we were stepping it up, so I felt like they were trying to step it up too just as much as we were.”

In the live portion, Amarillo High never had more than two first downs in a series, and Lee only allowed three plays of 10 yards or more. And perhaps the most encouraging part is that coach James Morton still sees plenty of room for improvement.

“I liked it OK,” Morton said of the defensive play. “We don’t have all of our adjustments on and other things, so they hurt us in some sets, but I’d like to see us tackle better, just do the little things right. I’ll have to look at the video sure, but I want to see us running to the football.”

What else Morton said will be a focal point going forward is the play on offense, as Lee scored once in the first half of the scrimmage. The Rebels found a bit of a rhythm in the live portion, scoring twice -- once by the first team and once by the second -- but Morton said his team still has work to do with its new system.

“You can tell that we’re still not comfortable offensively,” Morton said. “We’re kind of thinking our way through it, kind of slow -- that’s got to get to where it’s second nature for us.

“I’d say our biggest focus is going to be that to where all that stuff is just playing the game, and we’re not there as an offense. But as the game went on, I think we got a lot better.”

The defense will be right there with the offense in trying to improve before next week’s opener against El Paso Coronado.

Because like their perfectionist of a coach, Turner and Vitello were still looking forward to getting better even after the encouraging performance Friday.

“After today we feel pretty good about ourselves,” Turner said, “but we’ve just got to keep working to fix the mistakes.”